


If You Can Feel Pain, You Know You're Alive

by LadySilver



Series: Weight of the World [11]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Angst Bingo, F/M, emotional torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/pseuds/LadySilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 5000 years of love and loss, Methos knows something about pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Can Feel Pain, You Know You're Alive

I.

“Repent!” the street preacher shouted. He waved a pamphlet in Methos’ face, his solid white tie bouncing against his black shirt with the effort. His hair was slicked back with gel and tiny wire-frame glasses pinched the nose of a face that was flushed with passion. “Repent! Read the words of our Lord Jesus Christ so that you might save yourself from the fires of Hell!”

Methos brushed past him, shrugging his shoulders up and ducking his head to avoid eye contact. His steps were hard and fast against the sidewalk as he pushed through the transient stream of people that should have buffered him. Yet the preacher still tried to follow, threats of eternal damnation flinging like poisoned darts from his mouth, as if they meant anything.

II.

“Aren’t you worried about what’s going to happen after you die?” Alexa asked him. It wasn’t a one-time conversation, though it might as well have been. She still had strength the first time she asked, the appearance of health. Her eyes held a hint of something darker, though: the look of a person preparing to leave the world. Methos knew the look well. Humanity had changed far less across the millennia than it believed, and that glint of impending death anchored it all.

They were walking on the beach that time, their bare feet leaving temporary marks in the wet sand. “I haven’t given it much thought,” Methos replied. It was a lie and not-a-lie, and he didn’t see any point in trying to elaborate. Instead, he wrapped his arm around Alexa’s waist and stroked the soft cotton of her beach cover. “I’m not a Christian,” he reminded her.

A wane smile crossed her lips at his three syllable pronunciation of the word, a pronunciation she persisted in calling _cute_. Any latitude that might have bought him disappeared quickly, her features pulling into a mask of consternation. “I know,” she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand, “but doesn’t that ever scare you? Denying yourself Heaven? Damning yourself to an eternity of pain?”

The crashing waves and shrieking of seagulls caught the sigh that Methos couldn’t constrain and carried it away from Alexa’s ears. “I already have Heaven,” he replied, instead of a real answer that would only make her impending death so much worse. “Right here. Today.” He pulled her a little closer and was pleased to see the return of her smile. She dropped the inquiry, but not for forever. He’d never expected forever from her, just a little taste of peace.

III.

The tombstones in the oldest parts of cemeteries all canted, their granite or marble often worn smooth and anonymous. Methos visited all of them as often as he could, remembered them all no matter how he tried. Only the most recent had even those paltry markers, though. Many of the deaths had been so long ago that no graves were left to visit, so he paid homage at river banks and monuments, and tried not to think about how long forever really was. No matter their age, the graves were peaceful, the bones silent. Whatever struggles had once worried the people he had loved, they were done and settled. 

Methos pulled his coat tighter around his body, warding off the chill winter air, and headed back toward town. He skirted the corner where the preacher with barely twenty-five years of life excoriated listeners about eternity, and cut through an alley to where he’d spend the night. In the morning, he’d continue on—because, he’d learned, there was nothing he could do to hurt less.

**Author's Note:**

> For Angst Bingo round 4 prompt: _torture_.


End file.
